There are different types of reproHacks

Do you want to run a reproHack?

The most important preparation to run a Reprohack is to collate a paper list for participants to choose from. Inviting contributions from authors requires a form through which they can submit details of their papers and a web page to present the paper list. A way of collecting and communicating particpant feedback to authors is also required.

First check our code of conduct You must care for a friendly atmosphere for everyone

Join our Slack! we can give you support during the process of organising your own reproHack

1. Pre-Event

Some weeks before

Find a location for the event

You will need to find a place with facilities for plug in the laptops of the attendees

Publicite the event

You can use our twitter account including @reproHack

Organiser checklist

To make use of the current materials and templates to organise a ReproHack, please follow this organiser template. Feel free to reach out if anything is unclear. The workflow is easiest through Rstudio

  • Copy template repository reprohack-template-shiny. Name the repository: reprohack-<location>-YYYY-MM-DD.

  • Make copies of the two googleforms, one for collecting paper submissions and one for collecting feedback
  • Create a hackpad (eg etherpad, hack.md, googledoc) for collaborative notetaking at the event (optional)

  • Get geographical coordinates for venue (e. g. using latlong.net).

  • Complete parameters in YAML header of index.Rmd & README.Rmd.
    • Knit README.Rmd and push to GitHub.
    • Deploy index.Rmd on shinyapps.io. (More on getting started with shinyapps.io). Running the document also prompts you to authenticate with google which produces an .httr-oauth authorisation token. You will need to deploy:
      • index.Rmd and
      • .httr-oauth (required to access the paper list on googlesheets)
      • reprohack-css
      • any other assets used eg if an event banner is being used. You can also deploy programmatically with the following example code:
      rsconnect::deployApp(appName = "ReproHack_CCMcr",
                     appTitle = "ReproHack Carpentry Connect Manchester",
                     account = "annakrystalli", appFiles = c("index.Rmd", 
                                                             ".httr-oauth",
                                                             "reprohack.css",
                                                             "CCmcrlogo.png"))
  • Edit and upload slides.md containing the introductory to hackmd.io and set to slide view.
    • update slides url in the README.md agenda
Remember!

Send an email - message remembering people who want to attend the reprohack hour and location some days in advance

Day of the Event

Paper posting

We paste relevant information about each paper on a wall or frieze to make it easier for participants to choose which paper they want to reproduce. These printings have information that the authors send in the submission form that includes for example the programming languages used in that paper. If the paper has already been reproduced at least once, a reproducibility score is included that can help participants understand the reproducibility of the paper. This generates a moment of conversation among those who attend.

Sponsors

I you got any sponsor for the reproHack it is a good practise to tweet about them during the event or make available its material.

Stickers

People love stickers! If you have the opportunity, here reproHack hex sticker ready to be printed for your event!

2. Event

Introductions and Slides

Welcome the people. It is a good idea to encourage attendees to form mixed groups to reproduce the papers. We suggest groups of two persons, but this is up to the personal choice of the participants

Helpers

If it is staff people available, it is a good idea to ask the participants if they need some help during the process. No technical skills are needed for this, it is just to keep the hackathon going. Remember that ideally, a paper should be reproducible for anyone who wants to have access to that information. If any participant has fewer skills about the research topic of the paper and this became a problem for reproducibility or lack of experience with tools as docker, that is also relevant information to the authors that could be included in the feedback form.

Breaks

Reprohacks promotes a relaxed atmosphere, so we suggest leaving food and beverages free during the event. No breaks are needed with exception of lunch.

Let’s share our impressions about reproducibility

Sharing opinions about the papers being reproduced could lead to good sharing and interesting discussions. Before lunch and as final activity could be good moments for this.

Feedback Form

It is important that the participants fill the feedback form to the authors after they finish their (successful or not) attempt to reproduce the paper.

Author feedback form

End of the event

We encourage to get feedback of the participants.

  • What do they like?
  • Which suggerences do they have to improve reproHacking?

You can use post its as an easy way to get the information from the participants.

3. After the event